Should Books Stay Paper or Digital?

Nicole Lee, 11th Grader I 10/23/18

Books have entertained, taught, and opened new worlds to people of all generations. But with the introduction of technology and the internet, books are now directly available to the consumer by ebooks, pdfs, and epubs. Many have taken the new way of reading and accepted it while others still read paper books and enjoy it better. The best choice for books are physical books rather than digital books.

Physical books don’t need to use electricity every time a person wants to pick up a book and read it for a few minutes. A book needing a charger or a battery doesn’t sound right or logical but, that’s how digital books work. They use your tablet’s, computer’s, and/or phone’s battery and uses your time to open the app, load the book, and actually view the book you want to read. With the time you spent waiting for the book to load, you could’ve read the physical version of the book for a few minutes and save a little bit of your battery life and your time. Also, physical books are cheaper than the items you use to read digital books on. Tablets, phones, and computers are probably more expensive than the book you want to purchase and read. The digital books might be slightly cheaper, but that $300 iPad Air can beg to differ.

Physical books can be used by people of all types and ages. Even if electronic devices are available to most of the general public, not everyone in the world know how to use one. Elderly people, for example, might not have technological skills to operate a modern-day iPad or Kindle and could potentially annoy their tech-savvy relatives when they ask for instructions their relatives have repeated to them about twenty times. Electronics devices aren’t available in certain places, thus diminishing the chance of digital books in those areas. Physical books can be bought, donated, and sent to those areas and are overall cheaper than buying tablets and buying books on them.

Physical books keep people away from using their phones, tablets, and computers. As more users “log in” to the trend of social networking, the less people will read for enjoyment. With physical books, notifications from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram won’t pop-up in the book to distract you from reading it. Physical books also let people use their imagination more than a social networking site. When most people read, they want to experience what the character is feeling, hearing, seeing, tasting, and/or smelling. Reading a post about a friend eating toast isn’t very interesting.

The best choice for books are physical books rather than digital books because it doesn’t need a charger or battery, can be used by anyone, and gets people away from screens and electronics. So, get out a physical copy of Harry Potter, The Fault in Our Stars, or anything else and start reading it today.